By Darius Tahir, KFF Health News

Preparing cancer patients for difficult decisions is an oncologist’s job. They don’t always remember to do it, however. At the University of Pennsylvania Health System, doctors are nudged to talk about a patient’s treatment and end-of-life preferences by an artificially intelligent algorithm that predicts the chances of death.

But it’s far from being a set-it-and-forget-it tool. A routine tech checkup revealed the algorithm decayed during the covid-19 pandemic, getting 7 percentage points worse at predicting who would die, according to a 2022 study.

There were likely real-life impacts. Ravi Parikh, an Emory University oncologist who was the study’s lead author, told KFF Health News the tool failed hundreds of times to prompt doctors to initiate that important discussion — possibly heading off unnecessary chemotherapy — with patients who needed it.

He believes several algorithms designed to enhance medical care weakened during the pandemic, not just the one at Penn Medicine. “Many institutions are not routinely monitoring the performance” of their products, Parikh said.

Algorithm glitches are one facet of a dilemma that computer scientists and doctors have long acknowledged but that is starting to puzzle hospital executives and researchers: Artificial intelligence systems require consistent monitoring and staffing to put in place and to keep them working well.

In essence: You need people, and more machines, to make sure the new tools don’t mess up.

“Everybody thinks that AI will help us with our access and capacity and improve care and so on,” said Nigam Shah, chief data scientist at Stanford Health Care. “All of that is nice and good, but if it increases the cost of care by 20%, is that viable?”

Government officials worry hospitals lack the resources to put these technologies through their paces. “I have looked far and wide,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said at a recent agency panel on AI. “I do not…

By Matt Day | Bloomberg

Amazon.com is pausing all commercial drone deliveries after two of its latest models crashed in rainy weather at a testing facility.

The company said Friday it was immediately suspending drone deliveries in Texas and Arizona to fix the aircraft’s software. It’s the latest setback for a program inching toward widespread commercial service more than 11 years after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced an initiative to build drones capable of delivering products to customers in less than half an hour.

In a previously unreported December incident, two MK30 drones crashed during flights at the Pendleton, Oregon, airport Amazon uses for testing, with one catching fire on the ground. The company later discovered a software issue was to blame, related to the light rain the aircraft were flying through at the time.

The MK30 drones, cleared to commence operations by the Federal Aviation Administration in October, have been delivering packages to customers’ homes in College Station, Texas, and Tolleson, Arizona, a suburb near Phoenix. The six-propeller machine is designed to be lighter and quieter than its predecessor, the MK27-2, and fly in light rain.

“We’re currently in the process of making software changes to the drone and will be voluntarily pausing our commercial operations,” Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson said in a statement after Bloomberg inquired about the recent crashes. Deliveries will resume once the updates are completed and approved by the FAA, Stephenson said. Employees at the drone sites, who were told of the action Friday, will continue to be paid during the pause.

“Safety underscores everything we do in Prime Air and our MK30 drone is safe and compliant,” Stephenson added. “It’s designed to safely respond to unknown events in a known way, and the overall architecture of the drone has performed as expected.”

Amazon’s drone operation, called Prime Air, aims to deliver some 500 million packages a year by the end…

LA Metro is proposing to help victims of the devastating fires in Los Angeles County by providing them with free or reduced fares on its system for six months, Metro Board Chair Janice Hahn announced on Thursday, Jan. 16.

The motion by Supervisor Hahn, who was joined by supervisors Kathryn Barger, Lindsey Horvath and Hilda Solis, would extend the transit agency’s low-fares program designed for those with reduced incomes to all impacted county residents, including those who’ve lost their homes or were evacuated, including affected Metro employees.

The motion will come before the full Metro Governing Board at the meeting on Thursday, Jan. 23. The board meeting begins at 10 a.m. and takes place at Metro headquarters, One Gateway Plaza, in the third floor board room.

If approved, LA Metro plans on sending outreach teams to evacuation centers and resource centers to sign up residents for the program.

As of Thursday, Metro has reported that at least 19 Metro employees had lost their homes in the wildfires and at least 46 have been displaced.

“Metro has resources we should put to work as we respond to these wildfires, get help to victims, and plan for recovery,” said Hahn in a prepared statement.

CEO Stephanie Wiggins would be empowered to change the eligibility for the Low-Income Fare is Easy (LIFE) program that provides low-income fares and free rides for those income-eligible and extend the benefit to individuals displaced by the wildfires.

The motion also directs the transit agency to work with jurisdictions impacted by the fires to identify how Metro may aid victims in recovery efforts.

“Thousands of residents are now without a reliable means of transportation and our Metro system may play a crucial role as an option for residents to get to work and to our Disaster Recovery Centers to access support. It’s our duty to uplift our residents and employees when they need it most,” Barger said.

The LIFE program offers people a 90-day pass for free rides,…

Bus-only lanes, pedestrian walkways, bike paths, improved bus shelters and light-rail projects, which can take single-passenger cars off the roads and put passengers on mass transit — reducing tailpipe emissions and reducing gridlock — can face lengthy environmental reviews despite promising environmental benefits.

Legislation introduced in Sacramento on Tuesday, Jan. 14 will continue to let eligible transit projects bypass state environmental review, but one big difference is that Senate Bill 71 would make the exemptions from environmental review permanent and would expand their reach.

If passed, this bill would mean that more of these projects — some of which are controversial and can face opposition — could be fast-tracked in Southern California, particularly in Los Angeles County where both LA Metro and the city of Los Angeles have stepped up alternative transportation projects.

“We need more public transportation in California and we need it in the Bay Area and Los Angeles,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, the author of SB71. “These are climate friendly sustainable projects. We don’t need to bog them down with environmental review.”

Bills passed in 2020 and 2022 authored by Wiener, and one in 2024 by Assemblymember Alex Lee, D-Milpitas, exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) projects including walkways, bicycle facilities and lanes, bus rapid transit, conversion of general purpose lanes to carpool or bus-only lanes, and light-rail projects with a dedicated right-of-way.

Wiener’s SB922 is set to go away in 2029 and its sunset clause may have prevented transit agencies and cities from taking advantage, because projects often are not ready to build for several years, extending beyond 2029. SB71 removes the sunset rule and makes the exemptions permanent, Wiener explained.

The new bill expands the list by adding the following types of projects: bus shelters and bus shelter lighting; shuttle and ferry…

Port of Long Beach CEO Mario Cordero, speaking before some 1,000 people, highlighted the 20th anniversary of the “Green Port” initiative Thursday, Jan. 16, at his annual State of the Port speech.

Along with the sold-out crowd of 900 at the Long Beach Convention Center, there were others watching the live-streamed event online. One of the most anticipated speeches of the year — the Port of Los Angeles will present its State of the Port talk on Jan. 23 — Cordero’s presentation, celebratory in nature and lasting more than an hour, drew frequent applause.

The speech was interspersed with videos that also included interviews with other port, government and industry leaders.

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson and Long Beach harbor commission President Bonnie Lowenthal, along with Noel Noel Hacegaba, chief operating officer at the port, shared introductory remarks at the polished event that also includes musical entertainment and lunch.

Most of Cordero’s remarks centered on advances made to cut pollution in the port and also on the rise in cargo numbers. He did not address the coming tariffs promised by the incoming Trump Administration and how that could impact shipping and cargo numbers.

But Cordero has hit on the topic in a December news release, saying 2018 tariffs resulted in a 20% decline in imports from China and a 45% decline in U.S. exports to China due to retaliatory actions.

But the Cordero’s speech Thursday was billed as a time to celebrate and focus on advances the port has made in its two-decade-long push to become “zero emissions” in its operations as “America’s Green Port.” After the speech, he was joined by representatives of the State Lands Commission and Humboldt Bay to sign a memorandum of understanding to enable floating offshore wind power.

“We are celebrating significant progress not seen at any port complex in the nation or industry sector,” Cordero told the packed crowd, later adding: “Let me be clear: our stated mission is…

The former legislator is also gearing up for another run at an open state Senate seat in 2026.

Originally Published: January 16, 2025 at 12:57 PM PST

By Hanna Webster, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Impacting millions of children in the U.S. alone, asthma can be particularly problematic to diagnose with specificity — leaving the majority of kids without treatments that target their subtype of the condition.

Using a new, noninvasive nose swab test, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have for the first time detected multiple asthma subtypes in children with the condition, which previously could only be recognized through an invasive procedure called a bronchoscopy.

The team’s study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Jan. 2, is also the first to pinpoint genes involved in the various asthma subtypes using the nose swab test.

“Asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disease in children around the world,” said Juan Celedón, a professor of pediatrics at Pitt, division chief of pulmonary medicine at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and senior author on the paper. “In the U.S., it affects 6 million children, and even though it affects children of all races and ethnicities, Puerto Ricans and Blacks are most heavily affected — not only with regard to the frequency of asthma, but also with the severity of the disease.”

This is true in Allegheny County. A 2022 county health assessment report found that Black kids ages 5 to 17 had asthma at a rate six times higher than white children in 2020.

The findings give clues as to why some people don’t respond to treatment.

Asthma and allergy biologics have become popular approaches, due to their ability to target specific inflammation pathways, as opposed to the general approach of an inhaler. But the treatments don’t work for everyone. The researchers want to expand on the study’s findings to tailor treatments to other asthma patients, similar to how breast cancer treatment became personalized based on subtypes including triple negative and HER2-positive breast cancers.

The first step in identifying the causes of certain…